The Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group works to help people whose rights have been violated and investigates cases involving such abuse, as well as assessing the overall human rights situation in Ukraine. The Group also seeks to develop awareness of human rights issues through public events and its various publications

The Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office has detained 2 officers from the Loziv Police Station on suspicion of “professional negligence causing death”. This follows the death of a Loziv resident Laslo Kolomparov who apparently fell from a police station window.

Ukrainian News says that the information from a police source was then confirmed by the Head of the Public Liaison Centre of the Kharkiv Regional MIA, Larisa Volkhova (there does not appear to be anything on the official website – translator). Ms Volkhova told Ukrainian News that 2 officers of the anti-drug unit had been detained.

The men were detained on 27 September and the same day dismissed from the police force.

39-year-old resident of Loziv, a Kharkiv district centre, Laslo Kolomparov was hospitalized on 9 January after apparently falling from a window on the fourth floor of the Loziv Police Station. He died during the night from 14 to 15 January.

His relatives believe that he was pushed out of the window to conceal signs of torture. They allege that he was tortured in front of his wife and child.

He was earlier reported to have apparently jumped out of the window of Office No. 41 of the Loziv Police Station. He had a closed head and skull injury, concussion, numerous rib fractures, an injury to the chest cage, a broken shoulder and burst liver and bladder.

The police claim that Laslo Kolomparov, together with his wife, himself came as suggested by officers for a talk to the Loziv Police Station. The police suspected him of selling drugs.

They claimed that he had simply, and inexplicably, threw himself out of the window.

His family says that he, his wife and small daughter were taken to the police station by force. They say that both Laslo Kolomparov and his wife were tortured in front of their daughter, and that having understood that Laslo could not survive his beating, the officers threw him out the window. His family says that it was not only his wife and daughter who saw that he was beaten and given electric shocks, but other witnesses. They are determined to go to international institutions and to the highest Ukrainian leadership to prove that Laslo Kolomparov was tortured in the police station and hurled out of the window.

Laslo Kolomparov’s left four children.

In his mother, Nina’s words: “Here there’s total chaos, lawlessness, here there aren’t police, just bandits”.

Lana, Laslo’s common-law wife, says that at first the two were taken to different rooms. They began questioning her, asking when she’d last taken drugs. They took her along the corridor to get a blood test done, and she saw Laslo being beaten. She called to her daughter to run to her father, assuming that that would stop the brutality. Instead they drove her daughter away, then threw Lana on the ground, twisting her arms behind her back and beating her in places where it wouldn’t leave marks.

Several hours later, Laslo, only half conscious, fell from a height of 12 metres almost at the feet of his own father who had been waiting outside the police station since the phone call from his son saying that they had been called to the police station. He recounts that his son was conscious long enough to answer yes, when Oleksandr Kolompanov asked if he’d been beaten, and to say that he was cold. His father wrapped his jacket around him.